PaulMoellerB.A. (Hons.)Website: http://paulkarlmoell…Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Political Science, from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Fluent in English, Spanish, and German. Studied French for 6 years. Have read books in all those languages in the last 2 years. Reading comprehension, if limited, of some other languages. Teach privately, mostly at corporate level. Do the occasional translation.

Abstract

German Scripts, from Kurrent, to Sütterlin, Rudolf-Koch-Kurrent (Offenbacher Schrift), and Koch-Hermersdorf-Schrift have their beginnings in the 16th Century, when the precursor to Kurrent was taught by writing masters. It was characterised by the traits of penmanship, which the use of quills or specially-nibbed pens afforded. As it was inconvenient for beginners, Sütterlin followed, especially for use in schools. Koch Kurrent was later presented as an aesthetically-pleasing, but easier to write version of the earlier form of handwriting.

This article gives a general appreciation of the German script; without repeating what has been done elsewhere, gives suggestions on how to decipher the letters, for which reason the practical examples included will not have been neatly written; and ends with a section dedicated to the development of the German style, in which some comparisons are made to other forms of lettering – inevitable, as their geneses are intertwined. Whether this article is to be used for pleasure, academic or genealogical purposes, by including a translation, this resource is thus accessible to those researchers who have the Teutonic language as their mother tongue, and those who know English and have the necessary knowledge of the former.

Introduction: An Appreciation [1]

A myth it is, but supposing it were not, is not the old German method of writing, whether it be printed or cursive, both medieval and fascist? [2] These forms were briefly demoted during the beginning of the Twentieth Century, but came back with a vengeance during Europe’s darkest years of militant nationalism.

Just looking at those letters, the prejudiced can imagine to recognize the spirit of the culture which used them. A special argument can be made for the capital letters – both the leading letter of every sentence, as well as the identifier of all nouns. The first letter of every sentence then, is, as it were, the letter of introduction, the latter word being translated in the German language by the word Einführung or Einleitung. That latter word has, as its root, leite, i.e. to lead, or, to manage, from whence Leiter, or “leader”.[3]

Germany was no longer content to be left behind France and England, it wanted to be “a”, if not “the” leading power. At first, it would be sufficient, for Prussian purposes, to “manage” the affairs of its own citizens.[4] Later, disputes with neighbours would follow.

It is, of course, perfectly normal for governments to manage their internal affairs. The “letter of introduction”, the capital letter, however, generates, through “Leiter”, the synonymous, and most sinisterly-suggested “Führer”[5]. Millions, unhappily, were led to their deaths; more happily, a postwar democracy ushered in a readable script.[6]

Continuing the allegory, while on the topic of “capital letters”, it must be mentioned that “capital” is of the same etymology as one of the various translations of the German for “noun”, Hauptwort. The latter derives from the words Wort, or “word”, which is not essential to this discussion, and Haupt, which is “head”, deriving from Latin, caput, capitis. This brings to mind the word Hauptmann, literally translated as “head man”, but more accurately as “captain”. Therefore, if the capital letter at the beginning of the sentence suggests the maximum authority of an army – the (field-)marshall (to use the British or Russian, or an obsolete German military rank) – marshalling, managing, or just plain leading, and then followed by officers of lower rank who “head” their own squads; the other words and letters – the small ones – symbolize the ones with no rank, the foot-soldiers which will end up doing most of the work. The capital letters may permit themselves a few flourishes – their insignia of rank and their badges of honour. Any accidental flourish on the subsequent letters can be no more than the stripe(s) of a non-commissioned officer.

Now, following the historical script, these letters – characters – represent, in a way, the predemocratic Germans, or soldiers, (assuming the argument that Central Europeans are not as capable of democratic forms in their personality. [8] Under battlefield conditions, they would, upon the decease of their immediate superior, [9] rise in rank, and could become a new Hauptmann. Herein lies an unfortunate situation, if the etymology is correct that even the word “corporal” is derived from the same Latin root as “captain” – the reader knows which corporal made it to the rank of Führer, facilitated by the prior spiritual death of those who could have stopped him and his followers.

So much for the relationship between nouns, the first letter in a sentence, and leaders! More needs to be said on the topic of the minor players. They line up behind their capitals/captains in rigid formation. Pointed upward thrusts suggest virility – a Freudian symbolism is not to be discounted. A wide choice of military symbolism comes to mind – the spike on the Pickelhaube, or Prussian helmet; the bayonet on muskets or rifles; raised broadswords or lances; or arms raised in idolatrous salute to the Fuhrer-dictator. Depending on the quill, or the nib of the pen used, one might perceive weapons raised in salute, or, if put upside down, thrusts of such weapons as just mentioned.

Fig. 1: Images 2 – 4

Image 2 Dagger-like thrusts on almost all letters.. The reader is not given the honour of being able to see either a clear “e” or a clear “o”. Even the loops look deadly. [10] Dolchähnlichen Stoßen haben fast alle Buchstaben. Es ist nicht möglich, das “e” oder “o” zu unterscheiden. Auch die Schlaufen sehen tödlich aus!

From out of the Black Forest came Ludwig Sütterlin, to receive a commission in 1911 for the schools of Berlin, by the Prussian Ministry of Culture. It may be assumed that the inauguration of the new writing style was concomitant with the beginning of World War I. It was, without aristocratic loops, a product for the masses, who could not master the intricacies of the pens used for Kurrent. It was now without slope – without slouch – it stood at attention! It could be written more quickly, it was for a nation on the move.[13] Had Sütterlin been able to reach any conclusions about the relation of government-mandated efficiency in terms of both military and educational uses, or had he been capable of moral qualms, he was spared through death before the end of the war. A year after the hyperinflation of Germany, the use of his script was policy in the Prussian part of Germany. Before any Blitzkrieg began, it was the law of the Reich.

The present writer is well-aware, that the perception of violent images in tests such as, or similar to, the Rorschach ink-blot, is considered a bad sign. [14] Perhaps, though, all the military symbolism is exaggerated. One could choose to see the industriousness of the peasant – instead of pointed weapons, let the scythe be seen, or the saw of a woodcutter; when the letters look like a zig-zag, imagination could suggest the worm of a worm drive. In a more modern setting, the squiggle could represent views of the technological prowess of the nation: a saw-toothed wave on an oscilloscope, an encephalograph, an irregular heartbeat, or the rumblings of the earth. The latter geographical suggestion, more in the spirit of Romanticism, might suggest representations of the mountains in southern Germany; or its evergreen forests; or choppy waters on the North Sea which was once so important to the Hanseatic League. Perhaps one can see kitchen utensils, suggesting German cuisine, or, in the Kurrent version, the very quill used its writing. More poetically than even this, one 1894-born German hears the rustling of thousand-year-old oak trees.[15] Beyond a rustling, one might even be reminded of the German composers, when the variant of “d” as the musical eighth note is observed.

To the uninitiated, the writing might as well be Arabic , Hindi , Persian , Russian , Sanskrit , or similar. It is to be hoped that the reaction is not, “It’s all Greek to me!” It was, in fact, seen by at least one Prussian officer, as a national security issue, which would help keep the enemy at bay. [17] No one is forced to learn it any more – except if one is engaged in research. Perhaps someone would use it to write semi-secret texts – an option which is hard to imagine. So, the researcher must not let this army of characters deter him or her. The decision will be made to know the enemy. It may be a tiresome battle, but the reward will be a greater knowledge of people, places, and times past of the Holy Roman German Empire and its successive reincarnations. No problem exists in knowing the femininity of French calligraphy, but why not add the masculine element to the repertoire – by learning the script on this page, one would be marshalling neurons in the service of an acquisition of knowledge which would help to keep one mentally spry for many more years! Even Franklin D. Roosevelt was keen on using it. [18]

Fig. 3: Image 7

Image of the Arabic word for “chain”, slanted to the right, and without the two dots over the Taa marbuta [تاء مربوطة‎, represented as ة], as is the practice by some modern editors. The image is given to make the point that a non-experienced person could confuse the script. Writing in context would make that impossible. Abbildung ein arabisches Wort für “Kette”, schräg nach rechts, und mit der möglicherweise Weglassung der zwei Punkte über dem Taa Marbuta. Gäbe es nicht dieses einzelne Wort, könnte es nicht vorkommen, dies mit Sütterlin zu verwechseln.

Getting Started

Firstly, It is strongly recommended that the reader have an least an intermediate level of German, or a superior level of vocabulary, in order to tease out uncommon words from texts. If the reader just wants to have some fun, the best place to start may be here, if JavaScript is enabled, : http://www.suetterlinschrift.de/Englisch/Write_your_name.htm . Anything at all may be written. The introductory page to this website , obviously referring to the practice of the script, states, under the word “Important!”, that the words are written very clearly, but usually more narrowly. Unfortunately, this disagrees with the earlier assertion on the same page, that “it is rarely written precisely”, and that even the experienced reader must get used to any specific handwriting. [19] With such encouragement, once reader the reader is satisfied with what has been accomplished, both more enjoyment, and more education, can be obtained from the highly-developed Brigham Young University website, which runs what is said to be the largest family-search, read “genealogical”, organisation in the world . Such work would be seriously hampered if old writings could not be deciphered. There can be a leisurely perusal of those pages, or one might opt to review the script again, here it is in the Kurrentform, named, probably mistakenly, Gothic handwriting.[20] A full tutorial for this is found on the left, under the heading “Handwriting and Typefaces”. Once the reader feels ready, further down in the same column, one can find the “Transcription Tests”. They provide feedback in the form of a percentage of correct answers, and the errors are clearly indicated after the test is completed. This writer recommends a score of at least 80%. The program does not run perfectly, some correct answers may be marked wrong – upon retesting it after almost a year, it has been found to “argue” about what should be obvious spacing between an initial and last name (it wanted no space), and what was clearly an “ß”, a letter for which the page provides, was transcribed as “ss” and marked wrong. One “test” on this author’s part, which requires errors in order for this evaluation, had only 66% of the words, but since correct characters are marked, it gave a result of 78%, (while clearly marking 3 correct words, including the year, as wrong.) A second result, with the same number of words wrong, gave a result of 85%. So, psychologically, this might make someone feel good. The fact will remain, that there will be examples that are as hard to read as some of the most difficult here. It should not be necessary to mention this, but avoidance of typographical errors will help keep the score high. Choice of the wrong website can lead to errors – even if they claim to be of top universities.[21] Therefore, if the two websites recommended above cannot be accessed, because of computer deficiencies; and because almost everything seems to be copied from the following source, one with no experience may as well go to those who sponsor and advocate this writing, to download and practice with the following: http://www.bfds.de/bfds.php?s=abc-tafeln. There, click on the page where it says “Kurrent”, “Sütterlin”, or “Koch-Hermersdorf” for a PDF which clearly shows the letters. More up-to-date computers can enter directly into the following:

To avoid frustration, it is probably best to start copying Sütterlin letters. Once the alphabet is mastered, with no more looking at the table, it is recommended that words and short sentences be formed, and upon achieving full confidence, writing an entire page in this script. It should then be set aside for a couple of days, after which an effort should be made to read it. It may well be discovered, that, at first, it might not be possible to read one’s own writing. This implies the need for more practice. There is an important deficiency in the above pages, unless one dug deeply into the http://www.suetterlinschrift.de website, where the missing fact is practically hidden. This concerns the use of a flat stroke over an “m” or “n” to represent doubling of that letter, which helps eliminate confusion in such a thicket of strokes, and is not to be confused with the down-word curved line which is put over the “u”, to prevent it from being confused with the “n”. [22] The resulting increase in clarity can be seen by comparing “Summen” written on a word processor without a means for adding the aforementioned stroke, and the same, as it should correctly be written by hand:

Fig. 4: Image 8

“Summen”, incorrectly and correctly written. When a writer will scrawl as in the examples below, the distinction will become very important. The writer Hermann Hesse used this technique with the “nn” of his signature. Man schreibt lieber nicht “mm”, sondern ein “m”, mit ein Strich darüber. So machte es Hermann Hesse.

Another problem, not obvious while playing, but important in reading real-word material, is that simplification of the word-processor fonts and online writing of Sütterlin do not adequately deal with the issue of special ligatures, and the just-mentioned marks over their corresponding letters. Below are two charts, pointing out what this author believes to be the most difficult characters, with their comparison to Fraktur, and suggestions on quick recognition. The first chart gives the capitals. A colour-code has been used: black for Fraktur, Red and red-purple for recognizable embedded forms of the letters, brown for Kurrent, and Purple and Blue for Suetterlin. Other colours are included to help understand detail, or may have been taken from a scan.

For more advanced readers, the following challenges are included. To help out, the first two charts below show sample letter styles for the author of the text in Image 2. It is seen that various styles may be used by the same author.

Fig. 7: Image 11

Image of Capital Letters, and some numbers, used by author of Image 2. “J” is usually an “I” with a hook below the line, On one occasion, the form shown was seen. The “O” may be considered straightforward. The letter “Q” occurs only 50 times in one pocket dictionary, while relevant occurrences of “X” and “Y” are 9 and 6 respectively. For this reason, no samples have been found.[24] The first “E” and “M” are not valid Kurrent, the first “H” is modern writing, but looks similar to the Kurrent “X”. Note that the second “T” is similar to the first “I”, the “N” looks like the “U”, “St” looks like what the “N” should look like – a version of the 3rd “M” without the central loop. Likewise, the “V” should look like a “W” with one loop less, instead, it seems to be a “Zt” or “Zl”. The next chart shows the small letters.- – – Eine Tabelle mit eigenartige Schrift hilft.See original / Original sehen

The above shows a useful trick, although it may be time-consuming. A chart of all the identified letters of a particular writer may come in handy, when one’s memory is not strong enough to remember what one has already deciphered.

The following is another chart, showing unalphabetically-ordered capitals on the left, and small letters on the right, partially in alphabetical order. If the reader uses the chart method to help interpret letters, at least while doing so as a novice, much time can be saved using imaging software if no attempt at excessive order is made – rather, a note could be made of the identified letters. In the present writer’s situation, much work had to be done to understand the letters of the individual whose writing contributed to Images 11 and 12. A single postcard by one person would involve much less time, which relates to the reason that many letters are missing below.

Fig. 9: Image 13

None of the beauty of Kurrent. The vertical “g” in the top right-hand corner betrays the Sütterlin style, as does the rounding of the letters. The small “a” and “o” seem exactly alike. Readers who want to challenge themselves might find the partial text on this writer’s “Conspiracy Theory 1A6″ web article, go almost halfway down, just below a scan of a page of an old German book. Answers are in this footnote.[26] Ein Mischmasch. Ein oder zwei Wörter, links, unter.

Additional Ideas for deciphering Texts.

Summary: Once the basic German script, whether Kurrent or Sütterlin is mastered, difficulities may still be encountered, but partially solved with the following methodologies:

1) Looking for clues by patient exampination of the materials, especially, letters with their envelopes

2) Searching the internet to verify assumptions about people or places – that such names actually exist – honing in on component parts of municipalities to find villages absorbed into neighbourhoods – determining if a place once part of a German-speaking Empire is now part of the republic of a different ethnicity.

3) Knowing obsolete spellings, wordings, and abbreviations, or the location of the resource to their eventual interpretation.

In the image below, a letter was sent, in a non-Germanic script, to Ribe. The addressee had moved. Below that, a postal worker wrote something like Ruigkirburg, to use an intelligent guess.

Fig. 10: Image 14

A very difficult one, but with part of the clue available. However, the first two of the three words look modern enough to be decipherable.Nicht Alles ist, was es scheint!, siehe Abbildung 15.

The answer turns out to be quite different, but fortunately, by looking at the entire document, a clue is found. A look at the back of the envelope (in truth, it was a single page, folded in a special way, and then sealed), the following is found:

Fig. 11: Image 15

Sometimes a clue is as close as turning a postcard or envelope over. These are backstamps.Was in Abbildung 14 steht.

In the first place, a search is made for the word “Ribe”, which is found to be Denmark’s oldest town. The “O” with the slash identifies the place of the second stamp as another place in the same country. Browsers are able to handle things like a similar spelling to what is almost clearly shown above as “Binckiobing”. No usable result is found. The stamp is examined more closely, it was not a “c”, but a “g”, the corrected word is placed in the browser. Again, no such place turns up, but there is a Ringkøbing, so one can see that the paper was folded in such a manner that the “R” ended up looking like a “B”. In conclusion, the Internet can help give plausible answers to otherwise difficult questions. This image also shows that Kurrent was not limited to Germany, and even where it wasn’t used, such as in the following Dutch example, there is a similarity when the letters are not different.

Fig. 12: Images 16 and 17

16: Dutch writing at the end of the 19th Century. Similarities to Kurrent are striking in the “R”, “d” (with exceptions), “t”, and perhaps “f” and “a”, while the “i” has no choice but to be the same.Holländisch war kurrentähnlich geschrieben.17: A script from a chancery in Upper Canada – taken from an envelope addressed to Alexandre-Maurice Delisle. The following letters show similarities with Kurrent: “c”, “p”, “r”, “m”, “d” and “t”, in that order.Kanzleischrift aus Kanada. Das englische Wort für “sofort”, “Immediate”, sieht sehr wie Kurrentschrift aus.

At an even earlier date, 1776 to be exact, some similarities to Kurrent can be found in the American Declaration of Independence:

Fig. 13: Image 18

Crop of the American Declaration of Independence, number of colours reduced, and similarities emphasized in red. The most similar letter is the “t”, while the “s” is similar to the Suetterlin “h”, which itself has the appearance of a loopy “s”. The similarity may have its origin in the centum-satem division of words in the Western world, “centum” being the word for hundred (starting with “h”, derived from “centum”, and a centum word, while the Spanish for 100 is “cien”, pronounced with the “s” of a “satem” word, of the same meaning. Original of document is at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Us_declaration_independence.jpg. That original is in the publlic domain, cf.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us_declaration_independence.jpg#filehistoryKanzleischrift aus der Unabhängigkeitserklärung der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, mit deutschähnlichen Schriftarten.

Fig. 14: Image 19

In the above image, one sees part of an old envelope from around 1914. The slash in the first line practically guarantees the name of a river. The depressed line over a letter in the second line betrays a “u”. The first letters there might seem to be “Sl”, but that is rather impossible in German, so bets are placed on “N”. Logic dictates that a vowel must follow, the reader is already familiar with the myriad possibilities of misunderstanding the ups-and-downs. Well-known words should be presumed first. The second word there starts with an “H”, seems to have a letter repeated, and could end in an “n”. The word after the dash is the best clue of all: it begins with a “K”, clearly has an “s”, and, the reader might be able to surmise the remaining letters: The word is “Kaserne“. That suggests the previous word, “Heer“. It is “new”, “Neue“, “Neue Heer-Kaserne“. If a guess is made that the river is called “Mosel”, some problems might result. The English name is “Moselle”, and no one can be expected to know all translations of English proper nouns. To cut through search time, this author uses google.de. Only results in German, or from Germany, can be selected, thus cutting down on search time. “Mosel” turns up, and the reader’s familiarity with German language puts him in good stead. As this was being written, the second result was “| mosel.de | Alle Orte an der Mosel”, and it is a perusal of the list of names might give some clues. A more productive search even was to use Google.de for a search using the terms “Mosel Kaserne”. “Trier an der Mosel Kaserne” were the first two results, Trier is in the previous list, the word does look a bit like “Trier”, after all. The problem is solved, even with a less than perfect grasp of the lettering itself.

This source also provides us with the following, the first word is a further clue to the above, and the second is a common word on certain correspondence. The “s” is not standard, or correct, depending on one’s point of view.

Fig. 16: Image 21

Now, an analysis of two images scanned April 13, 2011, will be made. Here is the first – someone who knows the Frankfurt (Main) region of Germany might understand it. For anyone else, it will be demanding.

Fig. 17: Image 22

Edited segments, addressee’s name removed. Check for the answers in the footnote.[29]

A last line did not enter the scanner, but it was part of the work. It looked like Gossa, but that was not the most logical conclusion, the reason being, a search for the city shown in the above image will give the result that it must be in the same region as shown in the postmark, Gotha. While we are at it, we want to know precisely from where the letter was sent, because the sender’s writing, on the other side of the envelope, is not so clear either. The word “Hausen” is seen, but from its placement to the top-right of the postmark, it can be surmised that something is missing. As of this writing, Hausen alone is the name of 15 municipalities and 84 localities in Germany and Switzerland. The next step is to find the compounds, in the Gotha region. One of the two possibilities that Wikipedia gives is for the Gotha district, listing Waltershausen, Schwabhausen, and Westhausen. The first two words, by analysis, are too large, and there is no convincing reason to believe that Westhausen is correct. A look at the sender’s address on the other side gave the clue: it looked like Sund – Hausen. The task here is to find, among images, a map of Gotha, and hope that the name turns up. It does – it is the west-southwestern part of the city. Indeed, a closer look at the postmark shows the faint outline of the “D”. The last word in the above image was also difficult, due to a correction, and sloppy writing. It was conclusively deciphered after getting the first two words of the above image, and searching for those terms.

Here is the second, heavily-edited image of what was once an envelope:

Fig. 18: Image 22

The stamp celebrates the discoverer the tuberculosis virus, Robert Koch. The first word here requires knowledge of an extended vocabulary, the last line, more geography than is taught in North America.[30]

This image gives another unclear postmark, shares a word with the previous one, and has a little surprise, which might temporarily cause one to go off-track. It does not help that the investigation is for a place which has changed its name, and has a population of a mere 41 souls (link in German). Again, knowing the place of cancellation can help confirm the sender’s address, if it is the same. The postmark, on such a dark stamp, is highly illegible, but the word “Dresden” could be teased out. A search on a map of Dresden showed “Wilsdruff”, matching the data on the reverse of the envelope, and a view of the cancellation under appropriate conditions. It is necessary to understand the abbreviation in the last line, otherwise the destination will be understood to be that of the final word in the above image – a different place, but of competing beauty.

The knowledge of vocabulary, in addition to being extensive, must cover the period and place under study, and their abbreviations. The first example here shows edited parts of 3 envelopes from Würtemmberg. At first, the reader is nonplussed, but the final sample (left with more colour definition) lets the previous 2 be understood.

Fig. 19: Image 24

The investigator may have enough on his hands figuring out the place of cancellation. The first two items contain abbreviations not found in the present author’s dictionaries. Answers in footnotes include place of issue.[31] According to Mark Twain, the example shows a word so long that it has a perspective, or better yet, it is not a word, but an alphabetical procession! Scans of a collector’s material, made and edited by the author.

Another example of the necessity of understanding a bygone world is the following, which contains an abbreviation not discussed yet, but found in the above image (and not found under the appropriate letter in a major on-line encyclopedia).

Fig. 20: Image 25

As a preliminary exercise, the reader should have the patience to determine the place village where the envelope was postmarked. Without that patience, is there enough for the handwriting?[32] — Man soll auch fähig sein, auszufinden wo der Brief abgestempelt war. Ohne diese Geduld ist das Sonstiges zwecklos.[View in large size – Schauen Sie das Scan hier an.]

When the abbreviations are of a military nature, online resources can be found, such as the German Military Abbreviations, prepared by the Military Intelligence Service of the War Department in 1943.

The Difference between Kurrent and Sütterlin

The reader who is new to this style of writing may well be confused by the difference between Kurrent and Suetterlin (the anglicized spelling of “Sütterlin”). For the most part, the letters are practically identical, when concessions are made to various writing styles. For those readers who have skipped “Getting Started” on this page, it is recommended that a comparison be made of the two at http://www.bfds.de/bfds.php?s=abc-tafeln . Here, PDF’s for the two styles can be found, as well as for Rudolf-Koch-Kurrent (Offenbacher Schrift), although the latter may be left as a type of postgraduate work in this field. The present writer finds Sütterlin to be a childish hand – it certainly is suited to the ball-point pen generation. Kurrent would look very similar if it stripped itself of its officious heritage in the many chanceries of a Germany not-yet-united in the 19th Century. The first notable difference, other than the heavy down-strokes, and the compression between these same strokes – except for the loops on the capital letters – is in the “E”, which has lost the lower loop. The loop on the “F” has become a hook. The extra hill shape in the “H” (see the third of the four words in the image below) has disappeared. The “I” looks like the “J” in Image 6, while the “J” just adds a lower loop. The “K” seems uglier, as does the “P”, “Q”, and “Z”, but more because of the emphasis on a strict verticality, than because of great stylistic changes. The same might be said for some of the small letters. It is, for this reason, less confusing to speak of German scripts, than to emphasize which one is meant. When written according to the precisely-defined norms, differences can be mathematically defined. Taking the ratio “under-the-line”:”main-body”:”stroke-above-body”, the values for Kurrent are 3:2:3, and for Sütterlin, 1:1:1. Kurrent is slanted 60 or 70 degrees to the right, traditional Sütterlin, as mentioned, stands upright. [33] Because of the many variations that one may find in letters, especially going back into the 18th and 19th Century, extra help might be needed. This is a good link: < CLICK >. Some of the examples there are not for the faint-hearted. The is a “d” that looks like an “o”. “e” looks like “i”, “r”, “v”, “d” or “p”, “f” like a “4” or “s”, “g” like an “e” or “s”, the “ß” like the square root of 3, an “18”, an “R”, an “s”, a “p”, and of course, a “B”. Even opting to use a Kurrent font may be a visual nightmare: the following is in size 36, which for this author was the threshold of readability:

Fig. 24: Image 28b

Some further challenges: the following image has 6 texts, the first 3 are oft-repeated, while the next 3 pretend to show that one must be prepared for the unexpected. Answers, as usually, are in the footnotes.

Fig. 25: Image 29

The first word is, or was, common, in German correspondence, the second is common on war-time mail, the third is a special request, the fourth is an unexpected surname, the fifth is one of many variants of its kind, and the last example uses a mixture of lettering.[38] – Oft- und nicht oftgesehene Wörter.

Fig. 27: Image 31

An edited right-hand Part of Fig. 26 is below. This was originally a test to see how to make larger images viewable here.

A History of the German Scripts

This work has already begun with an essay on German scripts, representing the author’s musings. The article is probably of greater interest to those who actually need those scripts for their practical purposes. However, there are so many different ideas about the scripts on the Web, that it seems useful to try to make some sense out of that amorphous mass. It would probably not be altogether far-fetched to go as far back (if not further), to the Greek alphabet to find similarities to the scripts in question. As early as the 6th Century, a script form is found:

Fig. 28: Image 32

This is not the place to trace the evolution of Greek handwriting up to modern times, but the following letter similarities (as a minimum) can be pointed out as being similar to the older German forms (German likeness in parentheses): gamma (g), delta (d), epsilon (like the “r”), zeta (a looped-“s” on the down-stroke, or the “h”), ita (one form like the “z”, theta (a more elaborate “d”), iota (both capital and small version match German “i”), nu (another candidate for confusion with “r”), sigma (various possibilies, but the small version, both printed and written, are a match for the final “s”), tau (one of the small versions matches the “t”, and xi, (matching “x”). [41] A genealogy to Greek forms can only be clearly seen in the letters G, D, I, X, and the S through sigma. As Image 32 corresponds to a time near the beginning of the Dark Ages in Western Europe, the writing there was confined mostly to monasteries. Lack of communication would account for very individual styles. It is hard to know what word is best used to describe the writing of that time – Gothic [42] or the German translation Grotesk![43] Kurrent evolved from the Gothic script as of the 16th century, evolving over 200 years.[44] However, this author would like to add, based on comparisons made in Images 9 and 10, that the development of Fraktur needs to be considered as another precursor, as much so as the Greek, and anything else that existed during that time. One can image a stone-cutter trying to chisel some letter into a future monument. Imagine, as in the following, he had wanted to cut out an “O”, which he might have got around to preparing as an outline, without the centre.

The goal of an “O” not being reached, a fracture having occurred, the stone-cutter innovates, and has created his first letter of Fraktur. Purely hypothetical! It may have happened with a broken, gummed-up letter of a printing press. The supposition is not really in the realm of impossibility, but it is alleged, improbable though it seems, that Fraktur was the offspring of cursive writing, with a similarity to what is called Textura, a Gothic script of the 13th to 15th Centuries. (Link in French.) However, sources trace the history of Western writing back to lapidary work by the Greeks and Romans, the former in the 5th Century B.C., and the latter 3 centuries later.[45] The first attempts at handwriting are imitations of the work found in stone.[46] Emphasis on faster writing eventually led to deformations[47]of the originally neat work. After that, the time-lines become confusing, but a reasonable conjecture may be that the fall of Rome with the ensuing Dark Ages, and the copying of books in widely-dispersed monasteries,[48] eventually gave rise to individual and regional styles. The link in this sentence shows theMerovingian Transitional Scriptat the end of the 8th Century. It shows a medial “s” such as used in German script.[48] Charlemagne sought to standardize the many corrupted forms of his time, and in 789 A.D., declared the Carolingian or Frankish Script as standard.[49] What was being used in other parts of Europe has traditionally been called National Scripts, a probable misnomer, hence the emphasis is now on the founders of the various types. Spain, for example, had the Visigothic script, a phenomenon of the 7th to 11th Centuries.[50] Visigoth, meaning Western Goth, leads to consideration of other Gothic scripts. There is the Gothic Alphabet, created in the fourth Century by Wulfila, and described as an Uncial form of the Greek alphabet.[51] The script properly called Gothic, started its development in the 12th or 13th Century.[52] One of the variants of the Gothic Script was Textualis, also called Gothic Bookhand or Textura. It was used where magnificence of text was required, and was the lettering in the Gutenberg Bible and missals. At least the Gutenberg version was intended to imitate printed characters.[53] In this sense, that the character printed by type imitated the versions done by hand, the German “Deutsche Schrift” translation of this article’s title correctly includes more than just “script”, but also the hand-written letters. Derivations of the latter are the Schwabacher and Fraktur forms,[54] the former named after the place where it was probably developed, just south of Nuremberg. It was first used in the latter city by Friedrich Creußner in 1485.[55] Fraktur originated in the same city in 1525.[56] Their development required first a new handwriting, called Notula.[57] Textura and Notula recombined to form Bastarda, a semi-formal letter, and their immediate precursor.[58]Specifically, the Bohemian and Burgundian forms have been identified.[59]

Fig. 29: Image 34

Bastarda[60] Cropped and decolorized public domain image, see footnote for details. However, there was also a handwriting style of the same name, see next paragraph.

Public Domain.
Refer to aforementioned footnote.

Wolfgang Fuggers wrote a work on writing correct writing in 1553. This author believes his style to be a cross between Notula and Gothic Minuscule, but within his work, he calls it “Current”, though giving various different styles of the same, among the others therein illustrated. [61]

As an educated guess (until better data is found) might be that Notula eventually turned into one of the forms of Kurrent taught by a writing master. Prussia imposed a standard, created by, or based on the work of Hilmar Curas,[62] for its schools in 1714 (or 1741), but the final 19th and early 20th Century forms seem to have had British influences. [63] This fact further helps in understanding why some of the non-German examples shown on this page have similarities here and there with one another. Then, in 1716, another master, Michael Baurenfeind, dedicated his book on writing, which included a section on “Current-Schrift” to the authorities at Nuremberg. On the British side, mention should be made of George Bickham, whose form of Italian Renaissance-based roundhandcalligraphy would be preferable to most Western eyes. As his 1734 book, The Universal Penman[64] , predated the American Revolution, some influence upon American calligraphers might be rightfully suspected. The great name in calligraphy of the United States of America is Platt R. Spencer, Jr . While the Golden Age of American Ornamental Penmanship was in full swing, [65] elegant handwriting was going out of style in Europe. One allegation is that this was due to the use of the fountain pen instead of the flat-edged pen in use before. [66] It was not until 1870 that there was some revival. [67] Meanwhile, earlier in Germany, Goethe’s mother had already asked her son not to follow the trend to stop using “German” letters. [68] Finally, a more cosmopolitan-minded population wanted to rebel against tradition, now considered “old and ugly”, [69] echoing the sentiments of Jacob Grimm, since at least 1840. [70] Fraktur became the official script of the German Empire, upon its creation in 1871. [71] Ludwig Sütterlin obtained his 1911 commission to simplify the writing style, which again was had its counterpart in the U.S.A., with the Palmer style of handwriting being taught in favour of the fancier forms. Indeed, the two styles have been considered coequals of their respective countries. [72] Even before the first World War ended, Austrian schools had a book to teach German to non-German speakers , which used the same type of script as this web-page. [73]

The following image is from correspondence discovered after the next paragraph was written, and thus helps correct the historical record:

Fig. 30: Image 35

As will be seen further below, the powers that occupied Germany at the end of World War II were not keen on the use of the German script. Perforce, and to a lesser degree, as the [Second] Reich was not occupied during the Great War, at least some German P.O.W.s had to have their missives sent and received in “Latin” handwriting. [74]

The year of Sütterlin’s commission is interesting in another way. The German Parliament debated on the issue of keeping the old lettering for books, or implementing the style used in the rest of Western Europe. Seventy-five percent voted in favour of tradition. [75] However, the pressure must have been on, because the Bund für deutsche Schrift und Sprache was founded in 1918. [76] Nevertheless, until the Nazis got into power, the old style was used even by the Communists. [77] When the former came to power, Roman type was banned, and sans-serif was considered a decadent sign of international socialism. [78]

An important name in the new, post-war, Bauhaus style was the Leipzig-born Jan Tschichold . Before that, he had been an admirer of Rudolf Koch. His “un-Germanic” sytle led to a raid on his home and his arrest by the Nazis, [79] in 1933. A similar, but more convoluted fate befell the Austrian Herbert Bayer , also of Bauhaus, who, after creating some modern fonts in 1925, and having created a brochure in favour of the Third Reich for a 1936 exhibition, found his name associated with “Degenerate Art” the following year. The German Scripts were back, but only until 1941, when the official line, in spite of approximately a half-millennium Teutonic pedigree, declared it to be a “Judenschrift”, that is, a script designed by Jews. This rather schizophrenic state of affairs forces the following clarifications to be made: To be called a German script does not imply “Made in Germany”, nor does it imply an acceptance by the regime at some point. The true definition is through its pedigree, and was made in an earlier century by learned men of the Italian Peninsula, who, in reaction to the Gothic invasions, gave the writing style the name of the invaders, and later, in the same vein, renamed it “German Script”. [80] Needless to say, the Übernazis foamed at the mouth at this, raving against their former idol. [81]

Fig. 31: Image 36

Here is seen a mixed style of writing by a school principal to a city which is not really spelled that way, although some German military insignia has been found with the same name. Answer in the note (excludes name under postmark).[82] Further examples for practice are in the German section, below.

The Downfall of the Old German Script

For approximately 8 years of nationalist government, Germany had therefore insisted on keeping its old writing forms, and punished innovators. January 3, 1941, was when a secret document legislated against further use of the old forms. It appears that the most common reason for this decision was that the German writing style could not be understood by the puppets of the Nazi regime in occupied countries. [83] That could be true, in part, but there is evidence to the contrary. Let the reader consider the data in the following image of two scans:

Fig. 32: Image 37

The lower portion of the image shows a customs declaration for a shipment made to Italy (that part removed) in 1889. The form is bilingual, German and French. It uses Fraktur for German, and something like Times New Roman for the French. This was always done for foreign languages in Germany as far as the printed languages are concerned. [84] In other words, there was nothing that prevented the German government from using non-German fonts, and, in fact, even the stamp cancellation in Image 31 uses Fraktur almost a full year after the not-very-vocal prohibition against the Schwabacher, now decried as a Jewish creation. The present author prefers, under the circumstances, to believe the version that the official Nazi Party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, was using a version of Fraktur designed by one Lucian Bernhard, and when the publisher, upon hearing of the prohibition, and having heard of Bernhard’s non-Germanic heritage, decided that Fraktur had to go – it would not be convenient for the populace to make a connection between the Bernhard Fraktur and a supposed official sanction.[85] That is not the only possibility. It may have been to permit boasting of German military triumphs.[86] A half-truth, dug out by intellectuals sold-out to the regime, may have easily, in their haste to defame, discovered something written by a Jewish author, and failed to analyze the context, or deliberated suppressed the same. Here is a translation of such a text:

…Simscha b. Samuel taught that the Jewish Kurrentschrift was not subject to the full rigor of the laws regarding the Sabbath.[87] and

The Spanish Jews therefore created a Kurrentschrift which they used for profane works.[88]

The misuse of such texts about Jewish writing by the Nazis is highly probable. To the Heinrich Heine quote, “Where they burn books, they will also burn people”, can be added the added that where one’s past is obliterated, the future is endangered: first the German script was forbidden, then, allegedly, the German people were no longer worthy of the proscriber.

The more this period is investigated, the more logical it is, that the Nazis were doomed to lose. Here is a scan the back of a letter sheet, mailed in October of 1944:

Fig. 33: Image 38

Historical Note: Gneisenau (1760-1831) fought for the British in the American War of Independence. “New time need more than old names, titles, and parchments, they need fresh deeds and strength.” Capital letters here are more Schwabacher than Fraktur.

Either there was a dearth of mailing material, an order to use up whatever was left over, or plain disobedience against the 1941 injunction.

A similar lack of correct reasoning could be in the case of a writing variously called Judeao-German printing script, or yiddisch-deutsche druck-schrift, supposedly also called Wayberteutsch, Weiberdeutsch , or Judæo-German , nowadays. A look at the text will show absolutely no relationship to the German scripts, not investigating the precise meaning of the words inculcates error.[89]

The second consideration about the prohibition concerns the attitude of the occupying powers. Now it was the conquering, not the conquered, who could not read the German writing. Letters to and from Germany were subject to review by military or civilian censors, who obviously needed to understand what was written. In fact, letters, to the United States, for example, had to specify in which language they were written, to help the work of the censors. [90] The actual degree of prohibition depended on the occupying power. Here are some of the ideas from the internet:

The American sector was the most rigorous, while Soviets did not care one way or another, as both types of Western scripts were foreign to users of the Cyrillic alphabet.[91] Teachers who had been in exile, or in Nazi jails, would not have wanted to teach the old forms, while it was the British and the Americans who prohibited the script in their sectors, because they could not read it. According to Professor Albert Kapr, there was no restriction on the use of Fraktur in the German Democratic Republic.[92]It may have been softest in the American sector, while the Soviet sector was the area where the strongest link between “Fascism” and the old writing form was probably made. This contention is based on the reaction of teachers, the second above point, and an as yet undocumented source. In the British sector, few newspapers were licensed to be published. The permission apparently stated in English, “Gothic type will not be used.”[93]

Clearly, there is a lot of difference of opinion. Finding a primary source on the above question would help solve it. However, Nazism dealt a double blow to the German writing – first, by making it obligatory, and therefore synonymous with the regime, and then by suppressing it. Germany was ready for the script of the French, British, and American Occupation before it ever lost the war.

Under the circumstances, that there should be a moment of resurgence might come as a surprise. Hermersdorf was a redesigned version of Offenbacher, made with Koch’s permission, and released in 1950. Bavaria, from 1955 to 1971, taught its own version of Sütterlin. It has been argued that the use of computers is also contributing to the revival of the German script. [94] On the other hand, some schools districts, in rebellion to the existence of 3 different styles of handwriting at present, are opting not to teach any style at all – a pedagogical trend which also has its counterpart in the United States. [95]

Unanswered Questions

It has been seen that there was some overlap in Chancery styles, in the styles of handwriting in Europe and North America. It has also been shown that there were some similarities in style on a Dutch postcard to the German Kurrent writing. For the moment, it will be mentioned without recourse to sources, that the Fraktur style was not confined to Germany either, but was also used in the countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Denmark, Czechoslavakia, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland and, logically, Austria . [96] It may be guessed that German writing styles disappeared from Austria, for the same reasons as in Germany, and that in the other countries, it disappeared earlier, as the political systems diverged. However, it would be interesting to know who was behind the disappearance, and what arguments were used. Furthermore, were the children versed in Sütterlin reasonably adept at reading their parents’ Kurrent writing? At the end of the war, what were the respective percentages of the population versed in only Kurrent, only in Sütterlin, and in both Sütterlin and Kurrent? Similar statistical results would be worth having for the beginning of the National Socialist regime, to prove their original predilection for Germanic scripts, in particular for the bureaucracy. [97] At the same time, it has become clear to this writer, that whatever arguments can be made for the preservation of a national script, that any presumed German script, at most, was never so national as the writing styles found in, for example, Russia, Israel, the Arab lands, and Greece, let alone India and other writings of that area, and the pictograms of China and Japan.

Fig. 34: Image 39

Non-German words in German texts used what was called the “Antiqua” type, books containing that which is readable in countries west of former East Prussia. German text was written in Fraktur. Kurrent has been found in illustrations of an individual’s writing or signature.-- Ausländische Sprachen wurden mit Antiqua geschrieben. Es gibt auch Bücher, die die Kurrentschrift abbilden.

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Bibliography

The utility of the following articles varies. Reasons of space may oblige the creation of a “Select Bibliography” at a later date. Wikipedia encyclopedia entries are included for readers’ convenience, and the content cited is considered compatible with other sources.

University of Wisconsin Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures.(see above). The web page states that Ludwig Sütterlin was born in Vienna, Austria. He was born inLahr, Germany. (Linked site accessed 20110421.)

Walden Font Co. “kurrent kupferstich”. <http://www.waldenfont.com/product.asp?productID=8&gt;. The web page is correct, but the source code causes web engines to show text suggesting that Old German Script is also known as “Sütterlin”, also correct, but as should be clear from this article, Kurrent was not developed by Mr. Suetterlin, but the “father” of his work.

3. Cf. <www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lead> . “Manager” is a more common translation, but “head” is included. The reader is invited to contemplate the symmetries between the 3 terms: “head”, “lead”, “manage”, as verbs; and their substantiated derivatives, “head”, “leader”, and “manager”. More symmetries will follow.

4. Note the argument presented by John Taylor Gatto. “The Prussian Connection”. The most important part of the article is under the heading “The Technology Of Subjection”. LewRockwell.com website. September 2, 2010. <http://www.lewrockwell.com/gatto/gatto-uhae-7.html&gt;. Acc.: 20110319.

5. To further widen the circle of ideas, it may be noted the the word “introduction”, the noun from introduce, contains the root, which is also the title of the “Führer’s” equivalent: “Duce”. Correctly understood, the words are innocent in themselves, the present deictic use, however, suggests persons whom, hopefully, few would want to emulate.

6. Multiple understandings of the word “script” are encouraged. The stated years of implementation of more modern writing styles may not be strictly accurate, to facilitate a creative interpretation of the relationship between the writing styles, and national history. Sütterlin was never fully phased out, but it was fully implemented in 1935, cf. Franziska Fischer. “Was ist eigentlich die Sütterlinschrift?” KinderUni im Netz website. <http://www.kinder-hd-uni.de/suetterlin1.html&gt;. Acc. 20110319. This is not a strictly academic reference, but has the Heidelberg University as one of its sponsors. The author of the article deserves commendation, and by referencing her, she receives it.

7. Worms am Rhein. “Am” may not be strictly correct – this is usually just one letter, and as an “A”, it looks terrible.

8. For lack of a quotable English text, cf. Hellmuth Günther Dahms. Kleine Geschichte Europas im 20. Jahrhundert. (Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein, 1958). 32-3. The bottom to top reading, restated, is that the farther to the east one goes, the more autocratic the form of government gets.

9. ibid.

10. To be sure on the termination of the first word, the entire sentence would have to be examined. “letzten Mittwoch” is a good candidate, as is “letzter …” Compare the final with the chart of the writer’s writing style further below.

13. his statement is made with poetic license, but cf. note 4. Gatto Taylor insists that Prussian education had at its purpose the creation of a stratified society, of which 92 to 94 % of society went to “people’s schools”, teaching, among other things, obedience. More important may be the assertion that “The operating principles of administrative utopia are hierarchy, discipline, regimentation, strict order, rational planning, a geometrical environment, a production line, a cellblock, and a form of welfarism”, which he ties in with both Prussia, and government-run schools in general.

14. But in this case, why do school administrators in the United States get away with interpreting the fingers-used-as-gun play of children as something to be punished, when, during a time of the Twentieth Century, thousands upon thousands of young boys would play cops and robbers, of which the percentage that would go on to emulate criminal behaviour was not significant. More likely, the criminals did not even play such a game, as it too clearly identifies good and evil. It is easier to see a link between potential racism through the playing of Cowboys and Indians – an analogous prejudice against robbers, on the other hand, would have moral justification. To the extant that it shouldn’t, the same generation was reading Robert Pyle’s Robin Hood. Cf. John W. Whitehead. “Zero Tolerance Policies: Are the Schools Becoming Police States?”. Lewrockwell.com. February 17, 2011. <http://www.lewrockwell.com/whitehead/whitehead26.1.html&gt;. Acc. 20110316.Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood at Project Gutenberg

17. Graf Yorck von Wartenburg’s Weltgeschichte in Umrissen: Federzeichnungen eines Deutschen. [Achtundzwanzigste Auflage (28 edition)] Berlin: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1925, pp. 18-19. Linked is the 1897 edition. This argument has already been shown on this author’s “Conspiracy Theory 1A6″ webpage, as has the connection between Germany and the British Monarchy. It may be assumed that Queen Victoria, whose first language was German [Donald Spoto, “The Decline and Fall of the House of Windsor”, Washington Post, 19970513 as seen on <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/decline.htm&gt;, acc.: 20110625 ](as was her husband), was adept at Kurrent. Franklin Delano Roosevelt also practiced it as a child: F.D.R.: His Personal Letter, Early Years. Kessinger Publishers, 2005. (Scroll to p. 13 and 69 or search “German script” at) <http://books.google.com/books?id=8p25NCpzU7YC&dq=%22german+script%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s&gt;. Acc.: 20110624.

20. This issue is to be covered in a later version. Suffice it to say that one web site has confused Fraktur print with what the Germans call “Grotesk”, which in some places in translated as “Gothic”. If possible, the reader could check Berlin Sans or Century Gothic scripts in Word, and notice that these are rounded letters, sans serif – hence, there is nothing “grotesque” about them.

21. There are a couple of charts on a page of Yale University, which show 2 errors. In the first column of the lower case letters, there is an “f” which does not qualify as Fraktur. Worse, on the right hand side of the page, where the written forms form the Roman “T” are given, the supposed capital “T” is, in fact, an “St”. Mickey Koth. “Fraktur Chart”. Yale Music Library. June 4, 2009. <http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/fraktur.htm&gt;. First access 20100316, error continues 20110222.

24. Klatt. Langenscheidt Taschenwörterbuch. This count excludes what would be proper nouns in English. As all nouns are capitalized in German, and a sentence would begin with “Q”, “X”, or “Y” on the rarest of occasions, and a writer would have to be dealing with the sciences, or using nonstandard language, such as “Yacht” for “Jacht” or describing New Englanders as “Yankees”.

31. TOP: Issued at Cannstatt (now spelt differently) Oct. 26, 1885. “Schulths – Amt” betraying an obsolete or rare word. MIDDLE: “Verehrl. Schultheitsamt” Now we know what the abbreviation was at the top. The new one is “Verehrliches“. The postmark is from Schäbisches Hall. BOTTOM: More complete yet: “Stadtschultheitsamt“. The postmark is from Ehingen, A. D., the latter abbreviation, by looking for Ehingen on the Internet, being Alb-Donau, (as other places have the same name, though not in Baden-Württemberg.

32. Postmarked “Maegerkingen” (in lieu of preferred form, with Umlaut), 11-1-1885. “K. Amstgericht, Reutlingen”. The “K” stands for “Königliches” and its variants, according to declension. It is found on the Kingdom of Würtemmberg stamp in the previous image, but was not major internet lists for Abkürzungen K (Abbreviations K).

40. 1) Soldat (the “a” is sloppy. (2) Radio (letters not joined, first letter ambiguous. 3) Ludwig. (4) Feldpostnummer, with line over a single “m”, indicating that it is to be understood as doubled. (5) Fraktur, after secret prohibition (discussed in History section).

48. Monks and Illuminated Texts. <http://www.medieval-life.net/monks.htm&gt;. Acc.: 20110430. The emphasis on the dispersion of monasteries is the present author’s, and may be taken as a logical deduction.

49. Note that the last word on the first line is “ipse“, the “s” is of the medial type, while the second word of the second line is “aliquis“. However, the letter that looks like a “d” is, in truth, an “o”, the last few words of the first line are thus credo si ego ipse sut aliquis – the text is highly abbreviated, and may correspond to text in the following: Monumentorum Boicorum. Collectio nov Vouminis XXVIII. Pars altera. Codices Traditionum, ecclesiae Pataviensis, olim Laureacensis. The following is an associated file: <static.ahlfeldt.se/files/tp.pdf>. Acc.: 20110419.

50. “Gotische Schrift”. Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. Vol 9. (Band 9). An example of Visigothic script of the 10th Century is at <http://www.textism.com/writing/?id=31&gt;. Jacob Grimm (cf note 68, his pages 26-7) stated: “After the majority of the rest of the nations of Europe returned to the more noble and attractive forms of writing, among ourselves, including in part Danes, Swedes, Finns, Lithuanians, Wends and Bohemiams have claimed that distorted alphabet for writing and printing of our native tongue … with equal justification it could have been called, e.g., Bohemian …” (trans. by PKM).

51. Wikipedia. “Gothic Alphabet”. Acc.: 20110430. Cf. Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, “Gotische Schrift”Vol. (Band) 9, op. cit. If the dtv-atlas (op. cit.) and Wikipedia are correct, it would seem that Brockhaus confused the issue, by mentioning the founder of this alphabet, Wulfila, as the founder of Gothic Script.

52. König, op. cit., gives the beginning of the 12 Century, as does “History of Graphic Design”, which suggests the origin of the forms was affected by Islamic art. While Textism does not necessarily refute that, the available information is that Gothic was clearly formed at the beginning of the 13th Century, giving rise to the idea of its prior creation.

53. Meier, op. cit. <http://www.textism.com/writing/?id=37&gt;. Also, cf. History of Graphic Design, op. cit. König, 33, op. cit., states that it was used in all of France around 1840 was used in all of France, In theory, much of Germany should be included. By the mid 11th Century, Carolingian was used at the Vatican, op. cit.

58. For reference as semi-formal text, see History of Graphic Design, op. cit. That Bastarda was the forerunner, see Brockhaus, “Gotische Schrift”. For Fraktur only, under this heading, it is in Hauptmann, op. cit.

74. Material seen cursorily by the author on August 4, 2011. It concerned a series of letters sent by a POW in France to a friend or relative in Germany. The first one of the series stated that correspondence had to be in ink, and in Latin letters. No corroboration found on the internet, but the material may have been removed from my hands as it was a more valuable collectible. The front was similar to that shown here, but which the author claims to be a forgery: (Furthermore, the handwriting has heavy Kurrent influences, it might be 50% Kurrent, 50% “Lateinschrift”). <http://www.psywar.org/psywar/images/stamps_pow01.jpg&gt;. For more details, SGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.). Propaganda and Espionage Philately. Psywar.org web page, last modified: 17 April 2011. Acc. 20110806. Linked below:search for these words in text “disseminated in September 1918.”

80. Juan-Jose Marcos. [Font for] Latin Paleography. Instituto de Tecnologías Educativas website. <http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/jmag0042/LATIN_PALEOGRAPHY.pdf&gt;. Page 49, under “Concept”. Document dated at Plascencia, Spain, 9 February 2011. Acc.: 2011064. Although related to commercial purposes, it has the most detailed history found yet on the internet by the present author.

82. The name under the postmark is not given here, as irrelevant and potentially erroneous. The lettering does not use the line over the “u” and all letters except for the “h” could be considered modern, by German standards. For the moment ignoring the possibility the the apparent “hs” is really a form of “ß”, the answer is “Strahsburg i/E” (in Elsass), Strahsburg being Strassburg, Straßburg, or Strasbourg. An illustration of a military “dog-tag” justifying the “hs” idea is at the link below:From a French website titled “Les Plaques d’Identité allemandes 1869 – 1918″

84. The word “always” may be a bit risky, but is reasonable. The oldest book currently in the author’s possession, a volume in the works of Goethe, has 6 pages in French, in Roman-type font, on a “Question de Physique”: in “Physickalishe Preis-Aufgabe de Petersburger-Akademie der Wissenschaftern. Goethe’s Sämmtliche Werke, Vierzigster Band. Stuttgardt und Tübingen. J. G. Cotta’scher Verlag. 1840. pp. 85-90. Ditto, p. 57, for an extract in Latin. Furthermore, originally publications of a religious bent, for example, the Polyglot Bible (1517) by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez, which used distinct fonts for Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin.

85. Of course, this connection is not competely proven. There are also websites which deny that Bernhard was Jewish, but the accusation is certainly sufficient in such circles. Lutz Schweizer. Die Nazis und die Fraktur. 11. Febr. 2011. <http://home.arcor.de/lutz.schweizer/schrifterlass.html&gt;. It may be necessary to enter the home page and search.

96. Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City. “A Guide to Blackletter”. The following adds to, or confirms the above. According to the philogist whose work will be cited, several hundred thousand Polish Masurians of East Prussia, the Lusatians of Saxony, a handful of Bulgarians in Transylvania used Fraktur. (p. 7), and its use by Finno-Ugrians (Finns, Estonians) is confirmed. (p. 8) He states that the reason for the script of ethnic groups is because of their religious affiliation. (p. 10): Matthias Mieses. Die Gesetze der Schriftgeschichte: Konfession und Schrift im Leben der Völker. Wien: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1919. <http://www.archive.org/details/diegesetzedersch00mies&gt;. Acc.: 20111013.

97. This writer translated, in 2011, the partial contents of 20 documents out of Heiligenstadt, Eichsfeld, from the years 1920 to about 1938. One was written in Sütterlin – but if this was the writing for leaving school (by which it was assumed that the minimum education level was understood), how did it find its way into a court office (Amtsgericht)? Political patronage, perhaps.

117. The first error is probably due to having heard the word, rather than having seen it. Consequently, the author’s same source probably gave an insufficiently rigorous definition of the script actually in use. The present author himself has made a search based on a misunderstood form of the Sütterlin name.